PREPARATIONS for the coming elections are proceeding, albeit in an environment of anxiety, scepticism, and in some quarters even cynicism. There is uncertainty as to whether the elections will be free and fair. At this time the concern is not that candidates and parties will bribe or intimidate voters or harass their opponents.

These things have happened in the past several elections. The more haunting question right now is whether the present military regime will become a major actor in the elections and manage them to its own perceived advantage.

These worries are not unfounded. All elections in Pakistan, except those held in 1970, are believed to have been rigged on a large scale by various government agencies. Tampering with the electoral process to advantage certain candidates at the instance of a ruling party has been done often enough. Then there is the wider intervention in domestic politics on the part of military agencies, more notably the notorious ISI, that have sponsored and funded new parties to counter some of the existing ones, manipulated politicians, and undertaken old-fashioned electoral rigging.

Does the present government have a strong interest in the outcome of the next elections, enough to want to rig them? It is generally believed that it does. There is first the matter of General Musharraf’s own intention of retaining the president’s office. Zia-ul-Haq had the same goal to accomplish before he held the elections in 1985. He did not want to depend on the resulting parliament’s grace and approval and adopted other means of getting what he wanted. General Musharraf can do the same: he can issue a proclamation, hold a referendum, or amend the constitution to the effect of his continuation in office for the period of time he has in mind.

The general has said repeatedly that he wants to safeguard the structural reforms and fundamental reorientations of the government’s outlook that he is introducing. Judging from our past experience, the structural reforms are not likely to be undone. Yahya Khan abolished the “One Unit” and restored the provinces in West Pakistan, and these remain. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto abolished the Civil Service of Pakistan (CSP) and integrated the central superior services. Subsequent governments have not reversed his action.

Changes in the state’s orientation involve different and possibly sensitive issues. One such change relates to the state’s professed (not actual) linkage with Islam. The general wants to reduce it. Ayub Khan took the adjective, “Islamic”, out of the country’s name and called it the “Republic of Pakistan” when he promulgated his constitution in 1962. One of the first moves the National Assembly, following the elections of that year, made was to call upon him to restore the country’s previous name, which he did in order not to stir a hornet’s nest.

Any “de-Islamization” that General Musharraf undertakes will most likely come under review when the new parliament meets, and it will not be easy to sustain unless the Islamic parties and their prospective allies — e.g., the PML (N) — have been utterly routed. Even then the survival of orientational changes may be problematic.

It may be useful to recall that these parties suffered a humiliating defeat in the 1970 election, and the PPP entered the National Assembly with an overwhelming majority. Yet in framing the constitution of 1973 Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had to yield more ground to the Islamic parties than any of his predecessors had done. Two years later he had to submit to their pressure and move the National Assembly to place the Ahmadis outside the pale of Islam.

Spokesmen of the PPP and the PML(N) are alleging that the exclusion of their top leaders — Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif — from the electoral process, and the government’s generally favourable posture towards the PML(QA) amount to “pre-poll rigging”. In an effort to lift the spirits of their respective workers and adherents, they have been predicting that the “chiefs” will return home and lead their parties’ election campaigns.

This is not going to happen. If either one of them comes back to Pakistan, she/he will be arrested and placed in detention: Benazir Bhutto because criminal cases are pending against her in courts; Nawaz Sharif for violating his “plea bargain” on the basis of which he was released and allowed to go abroad. These parties will have to learn to do without their former heads.

The Election Commission has announced that votes will be counted at the polling station under the watchful eye of the candidates concerned and their agents. It has also been assuring the nation that no external intervention, or any other malpractice, in the election will be allowed. One may then expect that ballot boxes will not be broken and stuffed with bogus votes, and that overt, and easily observed, bribing or intimidating of voters will not take place. But if a government agency adds a few hundred million rupees to a certain party’s treasury, the action may not come to light for quite some time. This is a type of rigging that neither the Commission nor the foreign observers, who come to watch the election, can prevent.

Electoral alliances and/or understandings are being explored. Pir Pagara, president of the ML (Functional), has authorized Hamid Nasir Chattha, president of his own PML faction, to negotiate varieties of togetherness with other factions. He will not join hands with the Islamic parties or with the PML (N), whom he seems to hold in contempt. The ANP spokesmen have ruled out cooperative arrangements with the Islamic parties because the two sides, they say, have nothing in common.

The PPP, it seems, intends to go it alone. The MQM may be open to arrangements but nothing of that nature has surfaced yet. The Islamic parties may cooperate with one another and make an alliance with the PML(N). They are all comrades in adversity in as much as they invite the present government’s hostility: the Islamic parties because of their alleged sponsorship of fundamentalism and extremism; the PML (N) because it won’t let go of Nawaz Sharif. Noteworthy in the latter case is also the fact that many of its leading members — Gohar Ayub, Sartaj Aziz, Fakhar Imam, Begum Abida Hussain, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and his Gujrati clan — have abandoned it and gone with the other large faction (QA).

Alliances between parties don’t generally last very long. Those between the PPP and the MQM and between the PPP and the ANP are cases in point. The only firm and longer-lasting alliance I can think of was the one made between the ANP and the JUI for government formation in NWFP in 1972. The relative durability of this alliance may be attributed more to the personal sense of honour of the two party leaders — Abdul Wali Khan and Maulana Mufti Mahmood — (requiring them to keep their covenants) than to anything broader in our political culture.

An additional word may be allowed about the impact that the Islamic parties may have on the PML(N) if an alliance between them does materialize. The PML will have to come closer to them on issues of Islamization, madrassahs, and fundamentalism. In that event its confrontation with the present government and liberal forces in the country will intensify. If the enterprise of Islamization is losing popularity among the people, then, the PML(N) will have to share the Islamic parties’ reverses.

Parties are said to be preparing their election manifestos. If the elections are going to be meaningful, the parties should say where they stand on the real issues facing the country. It will not do, for instance, to say that they support the Kashmiri people’s right to self-determination. They should also spell out how they would help the Kashmiris achieve this goal, given India’s intransigence on the subject. They should also address the question of the cost of implementing their programme in this regard.

In developed and prosperous societies where a great many of the civic amenities are already available to the citizen, the national interest in a given policy area may not be self-evident. For instance, a woman’s right to abort an unwanted foetus has been a subject of controversy in America for years and no conclusion is in sight. Nor is it settled that opening certain federal lands to oil and mineral exploration is in the national interest. But in places like Pakistan, where all amenities are in short supply, dictates of the national interest are loud and clear.

Let me name a few of the issues that need to be addressed: provision of safe drinking water, health care facilities, sanitation and waste disposal, schools to impart basic education, adequately paved streets in cities and roads linking rural areas with towns; restoring public order, discouraging extremism of all kinds and eradicating sectarian/ethnic violence.

Include also: reducing foreign and domestic debt; compelling governments and government-controlled corporations and institutions to balance their budgets and stay within prescribed financial limits; encouraging savings and investment and expanding industry; re-assessing relations with India and the United States; our role in the reconstruction of Afghanistan and policies toward the central Asian republics; reformulating doctrines of strategy and the use of nuclear weapons; rationalizing defence expenditures and excluding military intervention in domestic governance and politics.

If a political party, or a coalition of parties, that forms the next government accomplishes even a half dozen of the missions listed above during the five years of its tenure in power, it will be deemed to have been eminently successful and will earn the nation’s enduring gratitude. It will, however, bear repeating that during the election campaign, while party leaders prepare their addresses to the voters, they must go beyond professing goals: they must spell out the relevant specifics and say how they propose to put together the means of achieving them.

THERE is little that is new in the latest resolution of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) at its Bangalore conclave. The anti-Muslim bias of the organization, which calls itself a cultural body, is well known. And its threat to build a temple at the Babri masjid site has become a cliche now.

What is new is the warning to the Muslims that “their real safety lies in the goodwill of the majority”. In other words, it matters little whether they are good citizens, wedded to the soil, or whether they abide by the Constitution and the laws of the land. But if they want to be secure, they have to be in the good books of Hindus.

For the RSS, there is nothing called safety per se for the Muslims. They must be at the mercy of the majority. This smacks of not only communalism but of gross racialism. And who will decide if Muslims have come up to the standard required? Obviously, it is the RSS.

The organization’s arrogance gets more pathetic when it touches upon the Supreme Court’s recent judgment not to allow the puja at the undisputed land around the destroyed masjid. Of course, the Solomon is the RSS. The RSS pronounces its own judgment and says that the Supreme Court has “hurt the sentiments of Hindus”. Why? Because the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) was not allowed to take the law into its own hands. Once again, there is a veiled warning — this time administered to the highest judicial body in the land — not to deliver such judgments because they may “hurt the sentiments of Hindus”. Who will decide that? Obviously, the RSS.

The point of warning is clear for the title suit of the disputed land is pending before the court. Then why to have law courts at all if they have to watch that their verdict does not hurt the majority community? And what kind of polity is the RSS selling to the country?

The most disturbing aspect of the resolution is its timing. It has been passed when the riots in Gujarat have taken a toll of 800 Muslims and uprooted thousands of them. There are also persistent demands for the dismissal of Gujarat chief minister Narender Modi and for banning the VHP. The RSS tried to put an end to these demands.

What is significant is that the RSS has expressed is unhappiness with the Atal Behari Vajpayee-led government. For a long time, it has been wanting to put L K Advani in the saddle but has failed to do so because Advani does not represent the consensus as Vajpayee does. For the RSS to stoke the fires of difference between the two at this time can be dangerous. It is strange that Vajpayee should say in the Rajya Sabha, while winding up the debate on the president’s address, that he was so tired and angry that it would not matter even if he sat in the opposition. He was also visibly hurt by the VHP’s vandalism at the Orissa assembly. The RSS did not even mention it in the resolution. The resolution justifies the genocide in Gujarat and characterizes it as “spontaneous and natural reaction” to the Godhara happening. None has minced words in condemning what the Muslims did there. But if the argument of the RSS is taken to its logical end, it means that the killing of innocent Muslims is justified because some bad elements from among them have killed Hindus. This is a new jurisprudence of the RSS.

The same kind of crooked logic has led the RSS to ask the government to apply economic sanctions against Bangladesh for “the atrocities on Hindus”. True, the Khaleda Zia government has failed to provide the kind of protection which the Hasina government had offered. But many Muslims in Bangladesh have felt this and so has the media. They are fighting against the fundamentalists who are harassing the minorities. But how are the VHP and the Bajrang Dal, which thrive under the protection of the RSS, different from the fundamentalists in Bangladesh? Should Bangladesh or, for that matter, other Muslims countries stop import of Indian goods because of Gujarat? The RSS, soaked in communalism, can think of measures only on communal lines.

In India, the problem is that the prime minister has given the RSS respectability by holding talks with its leaders and consulting them on certain matters like the Ayodhya. What is the status of the RSS leaders? They do not represent the Hindu community, nor have they fought any election to prove their credentials. The PM can consult anyone. But the question is not whether he can do so or not but whether he should consult people who undermine the basic philosophy of pluralism. I would have understood the consultations if the PM was trying to change the Hindu face of the RSS and making it secular.

The unfortunate fact is that the PM belongs to the BJP, which is a political wing of the RSS. Only the other day he said that he was a swayamsevak. If this is his stand, then he has no business to be the country’s prime minister. He must sever his relations with the RSS and should explain his government’s position in the light of the Bangalore resolution. Home Minister Vallabhai Patel wrote in September 1948 in a letter to RSS chief Golwalkar: “... It was not necessary to spread poison in order to enthuse the Hindus and organize for their protection. As a final result of the poison, the country had to suffer the sacrifice of the invaluable life of Gandhiji. Even an iota of the sympathy of the government or of the people no more remained for the RSS. In fact, opposition grew. Opposition turned more severe, when the RSS men expressed joy and distributed sweets after Gandhiji’s death. Under these conditions it became inevitable for the government to take action against the RSS...”

Jayaprakash Narayan, who allowed the Jana Sangh, the predecessor of the BJP, to join the Janata Party in 1977, was a disillusioned person. He wrote to Prime Minister Morarji Desai in March 1979: “Some friends have repeatedly complained that the RSS is trying to capture leadership in the government. The RSS, like other political parties, is free to influence politics and is doing that too. My only objection is that the RSS people are trying to influence politics with the camouflage of being a cultural organization. I have advised the leaders of the RSS to merge with other like-minded organizations or the Sangh should get affiliated to Janata Party. They, however, refuse to accept my views in the belief that they have a separate cultural identity and they have nothing to do with politics. I totally disagree with this argument of the RSS leaders. Even now I feel that the RSS should merge into organizations supporting Janata Party. But if they are determined to retaining their separate identity I would again say that they should open their doors to non-Hindus like Muslims and Christians.”

The RSS has a long-term plan. It wants to convert India into a Hindu Rashtra. Its ideology of Hindu rashtravad runs counter to our ideal of a composite nation. The national struggle, which the country fought to oust the British, drew members from all communities. The RSS was nowhere in the picture. Nor were the VHP and the Bajrang Dal. All thinking persons should combat their efforts to disrupt the secular basis of our nation. Aggressiveness of minorities is bad. But it can be fought efficiently. Aggressiveness of the majority is worse. For it ends in fascism.

The writer is a freelance columnist based in New Delhi.

ONE of Secretary Colin Powell’s remarks about Pakistan in the wake of the Sept 11 attack was significant. He asked Islamabad to realize that its cooperation with Washington in the war against the Taliban would provide Pakistan with a chance to build a new relationship with the United States.

The implications of the remarks were not lost on the Pakistani leadership. Here was a seminal offer that was more pregnant with possibilities than the simplistic “reward” motivation that many thought had prompted Islamabad’s offer of “unstinted cooperation” in the war against the Taliban.

From a narrow perspective, there were some immediate gains to be made: the first and foremost would be the end of the two years of isolation — an isolation unprecedented since 1971. The greater gain — and possibly the main motive — was to evade the consequences of an American rage whose extent could not be predicted in the aftermath of the Sept 11 carnage.

From the benefit of hindsight, maybe the consequences of American wrath would not have been as devastating as common sense then feared. But the relations with India being what they have always been, no Pakistani government could have risked exposing the country’s defences to destruction, or even mauling.

Economic aid did not matter at all, at least not in those nerve-racking days when the world was shaking. Only an imbecile would have calculated debt rescheduling while Bush was asking “friend or foe?”

Since the end of Taliban rule, Pakistan and the United States have moved closer cautiously. Any Pakistani attempt to move closer has met with polite rebuffs from the US. This American reserve has been demonstrated in more ways than one.

We were told that the United States had accepted, among other Pakistani conditions, a stepped-up American role in the Kashmir dispute. Yet, the Republican administration’s subsequent behaviour toward Pakistan on this issue has been as cold as that of the Clinton presidency. The maximum the Bush administration has gone is to call upon Islamabad and New Delhi to start talking. This plea to talk was considered “pro-Pakistan”, because India has in principle repudiated the concept of talks.

Beyond that, the Bush administration would say nothing that would suggest that America was cozying up to Pakistan. In fact, at the joint press conference with President Musharraf at the end of his American visit in February, President Bush, while offering to “facilitate” talks, avoided the word Kashmir and merely spoke of “all issues”.

On the military stand-off, Washington has given no indication that it considers New Delhi responsible for the confrontation. All that America has done is to appeal to both sides to exercise restraint, thus absolving India of the responsibility for being the first to mass troops on the borders. Similarly, while appreciating the Musharraf government’s crackdown on the extremists, Washington made sure it pleased New Delhi by asking Islamabad to do more.

What, however, must have hurt Islamabad deeply was America’s decision to sell arms to India, while restricting the sales to Pakistan of spare parts. While American generals were in Pakistan to conduct operations against Afghanistan, no US military delegation came to Pakistan the way Gen Meyers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went to New Delhi to sell arms — especially weapon-detecting sensors that will be used against Kashmiri freedom fighters.

All this downside does not deny the fact that Pakistan and the United States today are closer than they ever have been since the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan and the Pressler amendment went into effect (October 1990). Also, for the first time since the closure of the Badaber base, there is an American presence in Pakistan and most likely will remain there for the foreseeable future. This is not without long-term implications, negative and positive, foreign and domestic.

In the fifties and sixties, and again in the eighties, religious parties were ardent supporters of Pakistan’s membership of the global alliance systems developed by the US, whose role in the Middle East they were prepared to overlook in a common Muslim-Christian jihad against what they thought was a Godless creed.

Today, in the aftermath of the fall of the Taliban government, religious parties regard America as their principal enemy. Its backing of Israel adds to this image.

The big issue facing this government, and the one that will follow the October elections, is whether the religious parties and supporters of the Taliban will let the Americans stay and function in Pakistan.

They have not forgotten their golden post-Zia period when they sidelined the weak but elected de jure and de facto governments and conducted their own foreign policy and military operations.

The defeat of the Taliban and the crackdown by the Musharraf government have hurt their pride, which often borders on arrogance. It is doubtful if they ever would adopt a cool-headed attitude and consider where Pakistan’s true interests lie. In their heart of hearts, they have serious reservations about the Musharraf government’s apt slogan “Pakistan comes first”. To them what comes first is Islam, which they equate with their party interests.

The religious parties may be in limbo today, but it would be a mistake to write them off. Their basic assets — leadership, robotized cadres, money and arms — are all intact. They are marking time and will surely come out of the eclipse. Their ability to rouse emotions and paralyze city life — a taste of which was seen in October-November — is still there.

Nevertheless, it would be a pity if religious parties, which have never won a general election, were to be a factor in Islamabad’s thinking while shaping Pakistan’s foreign policy.

A long-term American military presence in Pakistan must also be examined in the context of our relations with China and Iran. It is doubtful if Beijing would develop reservations about Pakistan on this score. Hints in the media about Beijing feeling concerned over Islamabad’s closer relationship with Washington border on the grotesque. China observes Pakistan’s foreign policy moves perhaps as closely as does New Delhi, and its response in crisis situations to Pakistan’s concerns has been prompt and warm and showed that deep understanding which only an Asian continental power can have. In contrast, Washington has often betrayed a lack of understanding of Pakistan’s historical concerns in South Asia.

Beijing, let us note, has no war agenda and is concentrating on long-term economic development that will give it the place it deserves in the world. Over the years, it has tried to improve relations with India and cast a benign influence on the Indo-Pakistan relationship. Consequently, the presence of US-led allies in Pakistan does not interfere with China’s peace agenda. Rather, China should welcome an American presence in Pakistan if it serves to deter a war between Pakistan and India.

As for Iran, its attitude toward the issue will change from time to time — depending upon how Americans themselves move against the “axis of evil”. Bush’s rhetoric apart, there is little possibility of America actually using force against Iran. Its nuclear plant at Busher is fully open to international inspection, and on the whole Iran has of late shown considerable maturity and restraint in dealing with the world. Its response to the Sept 11 attack and the now confirmed offer to cooperate with the US-led world coalition are an indication of the pragmatism that characterizes Iran’s foreign policy under Khatami.

The US rejection of the Iranian offer seemed to be guided by two considerations: first, it did not wish to let Iran break out of its isolation (the way Washington helped Islamabad); second, and perhaps more important, it served to flaunt a superpower’s right to choose partners and allies and be selective in showering favours. Nevertheless, both the US and Iran have moved away from the kind of confrontational posture they had in the eighties, because both have discovered that — rhetoric notwithstanding — they have a lot in common besides hostility toward Saddam.

America has also not failed to note that in the struggle between Islamic hard-liners and moderates, it is the latter who are winning. In fact, Khatami’s second term is itself an indication of the way the wind is blowing in Iran.

The end of the Taliban regime has removed Iran’s main grievance against Pakistan, and the signing of the MoU on the gas pipeline to India is an indication of a normalization of relations between the two countries.

Clearly, in the absence of a countervailing power, there is a limit beyond which regional states will find it difficult to resist American policy where it conflicts with theirs. They have neither the economic nor the military strength to stand up to America beyond a certain point. The only intelligent choice they have is to adjust to US policies in the region without sacrificing their vital national interests. Iran under Khatami has shown it is quite capable of doing so.